


Lizzie Bradbury is Always Right

by thedevilchicken



Category: Wimbledon (2004)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Poly, Shower Sex, Tennis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4374458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dieter has been married three times. Lizzie has a theory about why it's never worked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lizzie Bradbury is Always Right

Dieter’s first wife was a pretty French model ten years his junior who spoke next to no English. Fortunately, Dieter spoke something like five bloody languages and French just happened to be one of them so marital communication wasn’t really an issue, and he tried to teach her English without a great deal of success though they were living in a rather nice flat in central London. Peter’s French had sadly dwindled after his GCSEs and _voulez-vous couchez avec moi?_ wasn’t really appropriate in general conversation with his best friend’s wife. She referred to Peter only as _the Englishman_ throughout their mercifully brief marriage and Lizzie found it completely hysterical. Peter wasn’t so sure. 

Dieter’s second wife was a German socialite ten years his senior with flashy homes all over Europe who liked to drag him out to parties and show him off to all her friends; Dieter seemed to like it, though Peter wasn’t entire sure his lifetime ambition had been to be a rich woman’s toy boy. She was stunning and stylish and the wedding snaps were in all the glossy mags that Lizzie liked to buy at airports when they flew. Wife #2 frowned whenever Peter walked into the room, whenever they saw the two of them between their never-ending stream of fabulous jetsetting holidays, and Lizzie giggled her arse off every time it happened. Peter scowled at all concerned. Dieter remained oblivious, or seemed to at least. 

Dieter’s third wife was really more of a husband, technically speaking, given that he was of the distinctly masculine persuasion. He was a couple of inches taller, shoulders set a fraction broader, an ex-footballer from the Netherlands who commentated on Sky sometimes wearing snappy suits with ties in colours that would have made Peter look like a rather anaemic sod. It wasn’t really a surprise because Peter had always known that Dieter played both sides of the court, so to speak; they’d been through all of the associated jokes over super-food salads during tournaments and fish and chips after them. Lizzie said they made a ridiculously handsome couple, but wife #3 sat the two of them eight tables away next to a bunch of noisy Dutch schoolchildren at the wedding and barely spoke to Peter in three years. Lizzie rolled her eyes at their mutual curt greetings. Peter wasn’t entirely sure what she found so dreadfully amusing. 

“Bollocks,” Peter said when she finally told him, a couple of months after divorce #3 was finally final, which he was quite sure explained his position on the matter with the requisite eloquence. “That’s total bollocks.”

“Don’t curse in front of the kids, Peter,” she told him with a wink, which did nothing to address his concerns. Then she skipped away to take the kids to their tennis lesson and left Peter to get his skinny arse to the club to meet Dieter for lunch and a quick game of tennis, in reverse order. 

The problem with that was that all through the match, one quick set if you could really call that a match and not just a warm-up though Peter supposed they were both getting a little longer in the tooth these days, Peter was thinking about what Lizzie had said. It really put him off his game and Dieter, the bastard, must have noticed because after a while, far from the usual cross-court banter, he’d started to wince and frown and then gesticulate like he thought he was bloody McEnroe every time Peter missed a shot and that was quite disconcertingly often to say the least. Needless to say, Dieter was the victor by quite a margin. Peter suspected the points he’d actually scored had been let by out of pity.

“That could well be the best match you’ve ever played,” Dieter said, clapping him on the shoulder as they made their way off the court and into the changing rooms. “Really. I’m stunned. Speechless, even.”

Peter pursed his lips; Dieter just smiled amiably, which was a gift he’d always had since the day they’d met, smiling his way through all of Peter’s irritations in a way that made everything seem somehow simultaneously better and yet at least 10% more irritating. Peter tossed his kit bag onto the bench in a way that probably chipped paint off his nice new racquet and set about his locker with gusto. Dieter raised his brows as he leaned back against the lockers to observe the spectacle, arms crossed casually over his chest. 

“So, what is it this time?” he asked. “Parents arguing again? The kids like rugby more than tennis?”

Peter sighed dramatically and banged his head against the locker that he’d still not managed to unlock. He did it a little harder than intended, as it happened, and he swore under his breath, rubbing his forehead. 

“Idiot,” Dieter said, stilling lounging there, still smiling his blithe smile. 

“Git,” Peter replied, stunning in his capacity for witty retorts, and he turned and sat down with an interesting vehemence that probably looked a little bit like that of a sulking 8-year-old. He knew; he had one. “Lizzie says your wives were all jealous of me.”

“To be fair,” Dieter said, “I think Arjan was more upset that you insisted on calling him my wife.”

“Personally, I think he just lacked a sense of humour.” 

Dieter sat himself down on the bench and he paused, the pause all the more noticeable because usually they managed to talk and talk and talk, usually without actually saying much of anything because usually content wasn’t the point, often joking, more often than not repeating stories they’d both heard so many times they’d lost count or daft anecdotes that never quite seemed to fit the situation at hand. Peter sometimes wondered how he’d ended up with a slightly better looking German version of himself as a best friend because for crying out loud even their names sounded similar if you said them five times fast. Peter Colt. Dieter Prohl. Madness.

“Did she say _why_ she thought they were jealous?” Dieter asked. 

“She said it was because we’ve always acted more like husband and wife than you ever did with them,” Peter said, because that was what Lizzie had said. Dieter still looked amused. “She said they all thought we were having it off on the sly. And they’d all have liked us to sink like the Titanic, except we kept hitting icebergs and refusing to obey the laws of physics in spite of the holes in the hull.”

“Has she been binge-watching the History Channel again?” Dieter said, apparently unperturbed by the remaining content of the previous utterance. “And I think I should take exception to her calling our friendship _holey_.” Peter snorted, somewhere between exasperation and amusement because apparently, as usual, Dieter was unflappable. “Oh, and tell her she’s been watching too much _Loose Women_ if she’s started using the phrase _having it off_ in casual conversation. What kind of American is she?”

Peter glanced at him. “I may have paraphrased.”

Dieter shrugged. “I think it amounts to the same thing,” he said. “Lizzie thinks I’ve had three divorces because everyone thinks we’re at it like rabbits.” He arched one brow for effect; it was effective, making Peter give a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Does _Lizzie_ think we’re at it like rabbits?”

Peter scowled so hard it was practically gurning. “No,” he said. “But she suggests we might want to try it.” 

Dieter didn’t look quite so bloody amused after that; if nothing else, he had Lizzie to thank for discovering the most effective way to wipe a smile from Dieter’s oft-smug face that he’d ever actually encountered, short of tennis and sometimes he still managed to play with that look on his face. Dieter looked at him. He looked at Dieter. There had, perhaps, never been quite as odd a moment between the two of them as there was then, and all because of one of Lizzie’s crackpot theories; Peter supposed it would have been only slightly less irritating were she normally wrong about them, but apparently crackpot-theories-come-true was her particular gift in life, second only to tennis and even then only by the narrowest of margins. 

And really, once he’d accepted the fact that Lizzie was very nearly always right and even when she wasn’t right she wasn’t exactly far wide of the mark, it sort of made sense. 

“What if she’s right?” Peter said. 

“She usually is,” Dieter replied. 

They showered after that, making a very clear point of not looking at each other throughout the experience except when they did and Dieter laughed and then Peter laughed and it was all appallingly ridiculous. 

“You’d think a public schoolboy would be less of a prude,” Dieter said. “Didn’t they teach you anything?”

“Surprisingly, the rules surrounding eyeing one’s best friend’s genitalia in the showers aren’t on Harrow’s syllabus,” Peter replied. “All I know is it’s best not done in polite society.” 

“Well, you’re not terribly polite.” 

Peter smiled in spite of himself and rested his forehead down against the tiled wall, which would have been fine if he hadn’t previously head-butted a locker like a prize idiot and likely bruised his forehead in the process. Lizzie _might_ believe Dieter had nobbled him with a tennis ball while he was distracted on court. Maybe. Perhaps. 

And then Dieter moved, and Peter closed his eyes; Dieter who apparently had no shame at all, though that was hardly a surprise, stepped straight up behind him and settled his hands at Peter’s waist, rested his forehead down between Peter’s shoulder blades, shifted to press his mouth there. Peter didn’t protest, though it was a particularly bad idea given their current location and the club’s popularity with a certain class of sports car-owning middle-aged gent around lunchtime when a leisurely set of tennis was a seamless alibi for an afternoon with a younger woman. But regardless of that fact, Dieter stepped in closer still and wrapped his arms around Peter’s waist, pressed up against his back all hot and wet under the shower spray. Peter was suddenly acutely aware that he was entirely naked but it only seemed strange for a moment before Dieter’s hands moved down and then, ironically, nothing seemed anything any longer, except surprisingly pleasant. 

They had lunch afterwards, just as planned, and it was simple to slip into their usual conversation because even if there’d been a slight shift from the norm, still _nothing_ had actually changed. Dieter was still Dieter, ribbing him over his earlier excruciatingly poor game, saying something about being asked to be a Wimbledon correspondent for a TV channel Peter had never even heard of and Peter supposed he’d probably be good at that, articulate and photogenic as he was even somewhere north of forty. As if forty were some kind of magical age when looks should all go to pot though that was demonstrably not the case. Besides, Lizzie would probably still be stunning at forty. 

“How about lunch at mine tomorrow?” Dieter asked when they’d finished their depressingly bland chicken salads, as they were both walking back out toward their respective vehicles in the car park. No one had been surprised when Dieter had moved into the area after divorce #3. Lizzie certainly hadn’t objected; it had made regular lunches an awful lot simpler, at least, now he didn’t have to drive all the way up to London and back. “Maybe I’ll show you some more of the things they didn’t teach you at Harrow.”

Peter laughed, rubbing one hand over his hair as he resolutely didn’t turn an unflattering shade of pink around the edges. He may have failed in some measure. “I’ll be sure to tell Lizzie she was right,” he said and Dieter winked just the way she did as he hopped into the driver’s seat. Lizzie was hot-headed and Dieter was so perfectly laid-back he was practically horizontal but they did have more than a few things in common. Apparently the chief point amongst which being that they were willing to share. 

He unlocked his car, settled in the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. Lizzie _was_ right, he supposed - all of Dieter’s partners had been jealous, even if there’d been nothing like that to be jealous of. Trust Lizzie to be the one to put the idea in their heads, he thought; in all those years they’d never even thought about half the things Peter was thinking about at that moment, sitting in his car in the car park trying to talk himself out of his second Dieter-related physiological reaction of the day. What he supposed was the oddest thing was how it didn’t actually seem odd at all. 

As he pulled out of the driveway, there was really only one thought left to parse: maybe Dieter’s wives had all been jealous but maybe, just maybe, he’d been a fraction jealous of them, too.


End file.
